Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026 techpowerup.com

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra says memory and storage supply will likely be much tighter in 2027 and 2028 than it was in 2026. He made the remarks during Micron's fiscal Q4 2026 earnings call on September 30, where…

161 points•speckx•about 3 hours ago•190 comments•

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190 comments

ocdabout 3 hours ago

I'm not a business guy, but I think I would be very worried if I created any opening (even on the very long term) for competition to justify itself being built up to meet demand (or national security requirements of other countries) on an industry I mostly control, because I prioritized extremely high prices for a few years that might have the effect of changing the arithmetic for potential competitors that wouldn't have done it before.

It makes me consider whether there would be retaliation in later years against the US intellectual property system in countries other than China. While RAM is a tangible product, the areas it serves aren't really.

radford-neal4 minutes ago

If I understand this comment correctly, it's saying that Micron and the others would be better off selling RAM at below the price they could get, in order to keep competitors from deciding to enter the market.

Such collusion might well be a violation of anti-trust law, but in any case, it wouldn't work. If they decide to sell at below-market price, they must (by definition) be preventing some customers from buying by some non-price mechanism (eg, only selling to companies run by other members of the CEO's family). Potential competitors would then see an opportunity to sell to these excluded customers.

malfistabout 2 hours ago

The argument I've seen about why someone else doesn't start selling RAM is it takes a year or two to ramp production. But here's a CEO saying he's going to make sure prices stay high enough, long enough that you can spin up a competitor

tzsabout 1 hour ago

> But here's a CEO saying he's going to make sure prices stay high enough, long enough that you can spin up a competitor

Where does he say he's going to make sure prices stay high?

genxyabout 2 hours ago

What they need to do is all raise prices for 3 years, dump below cost for 4-6 months and repeat.

Tuna-Fishabout 2 hours ago

They are not prioritizing extremely high prices. TSMC has a similar waiting list, so does ever other tool manufacturer. Memory capacity is being increased approximately as fast as it can be.

nullocatorabout 1 hour ago

You can find public statements in the last 12 months from Samsung and Hynix about their aversion to scaling out production or increasing supply because they are concerned about profits.

Hard to know who to believe, on one side there are the absurdly high prices and statements from companies and on the other hand there are strangers posting on HN that it's actually all fine.

muddi900about 1 hour ago

That is not true. Semiconductor industry saw a similar supply crunch during covid and spent heavily for capacity. And when the crunch tapered off, they were left holding the bag.

Micron would probably not even exist, or be a sticker brand for some Chinese conglomerate if not for this supply shock.

They are a lot more reticent this time around.

alephnerdabout 2 hours ago

There's no point bringing this up.

Whenever anyone does, there are dozens of posts acting conspiratorial on HN.

xenadu02about 2 hours ago

Micron has several fabs and fab upgrades coming online or under construction right now. An expansion in Boise and Virginia. Plus a huge megafab project in New York that's going to be the biggest in the world AFAIK.

All the DRAM makers have new fabs or plant expansions underway right now - indicating they believe the demand increase to be sustainable.

hn_go_brrrrr19 minutes ago

How many years ago did they start construction on these projects? How many years before that did they greenlight the project? I'm quite skeptical the timelines are short enough to line up with the AI boom.

pllbnkabout 2 hours ago

I think neither CEOs nor boards of the public companies care. They want to maximize their paychecks and bonuses in the short term before they leave to other companies.

__MatrixMan__about 2 hours ago

Like termites, moving on to the next tree. One day we'll figure out how to be rid of these parasites, then we'll have healthier trees.

ocdabout 2 hours ago

Point well taken. Same issue as with shareholders since it's not like companies really belong to a family anymore with a reputation on the line, like their name being in the company name.

HarHarVeryFunnyabout 1 hour ago

I don't think the semiconductor business is so much like that - it's become more ingrained in them that you need to manage the business for long-term sustainability.

aenisabout 2 hours ago

Except that in this case it's no longer 'collect money, move on to the next one'. It's 'collect money, become dynastically-rich, retire in 3 quarters from now'. After that, who cares.

oblioabout 2 hours ago

It's worse, sometimes even governments fail due to overconfidence.

Brazil and the UK (well, technically Japan) caused 2 natural rubber price spikes that first led to the UK smuggling rubber tree seeds to be imported to Malaysia, where the UK took over global natural rubber production, marginalizing Brazil.

Then Japan conquered the Malaysia during WW2, at which point everyone started developing artificial rubber and natural rubber was reduced to a much smaller market.

water-drummerabout 3 hours ago

Shovel seller says shovels will be expensive in winter so make sure to buy as many as you can today.

dgellowabout 3 hours ago

I mean, yes, but they are also right. They benefit from the market conditions, and contribute to the price increase, but it’s pretty clear there won’t be that much available shovels for a very long time

MrGilbertabout 2 hours ago

Of course, because there was a HOA that became financially so big (on paper), that it secured 80% of the shovel supply for the next two years. Now everyone is fighting over the remaining 20%.

cheschireabout 2 hours ago

Especially when the equipment the shovel seller uses to produce shovels has been retooled to produce backhoes instead because of a digging bubble.

twelvedogsabout 3 hours ago

doesn't seem unlikely, i'd probably ask someone who won't massively benefit from people believing that it will be tighter though

Neil44about 3 hours ago

Yeah he doesn't want people delaying purchasing decisions

embedding-shapeabout 2 hours ago

Yeah, if anything, this makes it more clear to me that all this wonky supply/demand stuff will correct itself sooner rather than later. I've been wanting to upgrade my workstation but the DDR5 RDIMM sticks are unbelievably expensive, last few weeks I've almost pulled the trigger anyway, now I think I'll continue wait at least for the beginning of next year.

jasonjmcgheeabout 2 hours ago

Exactly - this kind of borders on market influence.

Effectively: "Now's the time to invest..."

proxysnaabout 3 hours ago

I have huge hopes fox CXMT entering the market and at least offsetting this nightmare. Just this week i've paid ~$1k USD for 2x32G DDR5 ECC, insane.

adrian_babout 2 hours ago

CXMT has entered the market, but for now they cannot increase their production fast enough to influence significantly the global prices, due to the US "sanctions", which prevent them to buy modern fabrication equipment.

So they must use older equipment, which has low productivity for state-of-the-art memories. Because of the "sanctions" there are now Chinese companies that have progressed significantly in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, but the effect of this will also take some more time to manifest.

Nonetheless, if the 3 big memory producers will not be able to increase the availability of memory until 2028, then until then CXMT will grab with certainty a major part of the market (they have already grown quickly until 10% of the market, from a negligible percent previously).

dv_dtabout 2 hours ago

The greed and shortsightedness from both the memory makers and their big customers trying to lock out competitors from memory purchases is palpable. The first act of a Shakespearean or Greek Tragedy is where the characters take the actions that lock in the circumstances that precede their downfall. And this sets up everything for the next act where CXMT has everything it needs to establish itself on the market with buyers that would perhaps would not have considered it in other circumstances.

superxpro12about 2 hours ago

yay capitalism!

elorantabout 3 hours ago

They don't have the infrastructure to meet global demand.

HarHarVeryFunny19 minutes ago

Depends on what kind of memory you are talking about.

For DRAM, CXMT were only 1% of the global suppy 3 years ago, and are now already 10%. They are growing extremely rapidly.

If you are concerned about consumer memory - smartphones, laptops, desktops, then this is what CXMT are making. CXMT do make HBM too, for AI accelerators, but their volume there is held back by sanctions.

Grombobulousabout 2 hours ago

I would never bet against a Chinese company ramping up production quickly.

vidarhabout 2 hours ago

They're 10% of the market now, and they've shown the ability to scale up manufacturing rapidly. They certainly won't singlehandedly meet demand, but they might at least be able to temper the price growth quite a bit.

bryanlarsenabout 3 hours ago

Yet. Maybe they will by 2028, making this prediction incorrect.

aurareturnabout 2 hours ago

Everyone, and I mean everyone, is gated by ASML machines. They can't make nearly enough EUV machines to satisfy the demand. ASML has also not scaled their production nearly as much because they're quite far away from the AGI-pilled companies in the supply chain.

Tuna-Fishabout 2 hours ago

Well, CXMT is not gated by ASML machines because they can't buy them. They can raise their capacity because they have access to the domestically produced steppers. They are not as good as the ASML ones, and if the memory prices were not bonkers, they'd never make a profit using them, but as it is the low yields and high die sizes don't matter.

genxyabout 2 hours ago

You don't need ASML machines to make RAM. BS.

BatchJobabout 1 hour ago

The war on general purpose computing is ramping up. They are coming for your computer....get ready.

Read the full thread on Hacker News →

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